that's kind of the oddity that people are focusing on right now, which, to me, given the environment we're in, does seem a touch odd. > > so what do you look at that's important? do you look at the payroll numbers? do you look at the participation numbers? > > all of them are important. they all serve and weigh into your forecast. the participation number is important because you need people participating in the workforce to push a country forward. that's at the lowest level it has been in 30 years. so there are fewer people today participating than there have been since 1981 in the workforce. the overall employment number is probably the most respected, the 114,000. that's crucial for the economy. you really need to see that kick up into the 200- to 250,000s before we start making headway into the employment problem that we have right now. > > every month they revise that number, so that will probably be changing soon. > > sure. these all are- not guesses, but there's a lot of deviation around them. and as we saw, i think last year's employment numbers were revised up 384,000 are th